A Breath Away. Rita Herron
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aware that he was dropping another bombshell, then forced himself to spit it out. “Violet, your father confessed to killing Darlene.”
A HEARTBEAT OF SILENCE stretched between them. “What?” Violet clutched the table edge. “Did you tell my grandmother this?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, she insisted.”
Violet sank into the chair. Her father was not a killer. He wouldn’t have hurt Darlene. Not her best friend. Not the girl who’d defended her.
Bits and pieces of that horrible last day rushed back. Her father’s fury when he realized she’d told the town about her connection to Darlene. The nervous way he’d stalked around the house, muttering under his breath that people would think she was a nutcase. That the devil had gotten her.
A shudder gripped her. What did she really know about her father? That he’d dragged her to the car that dark cold night without even kissing her goodbye. That he’d sent her away without a backward glance because he thought she was possessed. That he hadn’t contacted her since. That he’d made her feel like some kind of freak.
That he hadn’t told the Monroes where to find Darlene in time.
She swallowed to make her voice work, but before she could speak, her grandmother clutched her chest.
“Violet…”
Panic slammed into her. “Grammy, what’s wrong?”
Her grandmother doubled over in the kitchen chair, gasping for air.
“Is she all right?” Grady yelled.
She was turning white. No, blue. “I have to call an ambulance!” Violet disconnected the phone and punched in 9-1-1, her heart racing.
“Jed didn’t…do it,” her grandmother rasped. “Not a…k-killer.”
Her frail body jerked, then she slumped against Violet.
WHAT THE HELL WAS happening? Grady hit Redial, his pulse clamoring, but the phone rang over and over. Was Mrs. Baker okay? Had the news killed her?
He scrubbed a sweaty hand over his face and cursed. The scents of death and formaldehyde from the coroner’s office came back to him, his sister’s childlike face resurfacing. He’d never forget standing beside his father to identify her body. The image of Darlene’s glassy eyes. The cuts and scrapes. Dirt and mud and weeds had clung to her pale skin, the signs of rigor mortis already setting in. Signs he hadn’t understood at the time. Signs he’d recognized in other bodies since.
He and his father had waited all these years to learn the truth about Darlene’s killer. But now to discover he’d been living in their own town, that Violet’s father had murdered her. It was almost unbelievable….
But why had Baker killed himself now, twenty years later? It wasn’t as if the case had been recently reopened. Unless the anniversary had finally driven Baker mad, as it threatened to do to Grady every year…
Uncertainty nagged at him again. At age thirteen, he hadn’t known anything about the police investigation.
But he had read the files since. Hell, he’d memorized them. Tonight he would review them again and see how the police had missed that Baker was the killer. Just as soon as he told his father. A stream of sweat dribbled down his chin.
He hoped his dad didn’t already know….
VIOLET CLUNG TO HER grandmother’s hand on the ambulance ride to the hospital, as the minutes stretched out. For several seconds back at the cottage, she’d thought her Grammy had died. Then she’d jerked slightly, breathing again as if she refused to give up the fight. As if she knew she couldn’t leave this world, not yet. Her granddaughter needed her.
In fact, Violet should have been there to take the phone call. She could have broken the news more gently. She should have protected her, just as she should have protected Darlene.
Violet had tried so hard to atone for that day. She hadn’t celebrated a birthday since. And now she might lose the only person who’d been a constant in her life.
The ambulance screeched up to the emergency room entrance. Paramedics jumped into action. A team of doctors and nurses met them at the door, shouting questions and her grandmother’s vital signs as they wheeled her through the ER.
“Pulse sixty-five, weak and thready. Respiration thirty, shallow. BP eighty over fifty.”
“Dr. Rothchild, cardiology. How long was she out?”
“A couple of minutes.” The paramedic glanced at Violet for confirmation.
Violet nodded, running behind, her heart in her throat. The EMTs opened a set of double doors and wheeled her grandmother toward an exam room. One of the nurses threw out a hand and stopped Violet from entering, then pointed to a waiting area with a few stiff chairs and an ancient coffee machine in the corner. “You’ll have to wait there, miss.”
Violet grabbed her arm. “Please let me know as soon as you find out something.”
The nurse offered a tight smile, her expression sympathetic. “I will. Why don’t you get a cup of coffee or something. It might be a while.”
Violet’s stomach was too knotted for her to drink or eat anything. Instead she paced the waiting room, her shoes clicking on the tiles, the conversation with Grady Monroe reverberating in her head.
Your father is dead. He left a suicide note. He confessed to murdering Darlene.
She didn’t believe it. Why would he have killed Darlene?
Frustration gnawed at her—it was too late to ask him.
The finality of his death hit her, and a sob welled in her throat. Her father would never make that phone call she’d desperately wanted. Would never walk in the door and take her in his arms or beg her forgiveness for sending her away.
He’d never tell her he loved her.
At least when he was alive, she’d been able to hope that one day he’d reappear and admit the past twenty years had been a mistake. That he was sorry for shutting her out of his life.
Her knees buckled, and she collapsed on the tattered vinyl sofa, the scents of antiseptic, and death washing over her. Her chest hurt from the pressure of holding back tears. Finally, she could fight them no longer. Sobs racked her as the hands of the wall clock ticked out the seconds, the minutes. Finally her sobs lessened, and anger replaced the pain. Violet stared at the gray walls, the stained coffee table overflowing with magazines. She was massaging her temples when she spotted the newspaper article on the missing Savannah woman.
When Darlene had been in danger, Violet had felt so connected to her. And today she’d thought a stranger’s voice had whispered to her on her deathbed. If she had some crazy psychic ability, why hadn’t she ever felt a connection to her own father? Why hadn’t she known he was in danger or that he was contemplating suicide?
Had he sent her away because he was afraid she might figure out the truth—that he’d killed Darlene?
Violet dropped her head into her hands. The blood vessels in her temples seemed about to explode. She didn’t really believe he’d killed her friend, did she?
“Miss Baker?”
She jerked her head up and swiped at her eyes. “Yes?”
“Your grandmother is resting now,” Dr. Rothchild said. “She had a mild stroke.”
“But she’s alive?”
“Yes.”
Violet stood on wobbly legs. “Can I see her?”
“For just a moment. She’s being moved to ICU.”
And her prognosis? She couldn’t bring herself to ask.
The doctor jammed his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “We can release her in a few